ADRIAN — When just a handful of musicians — a string quartet, say — sit down together to play chamber music, how exactly do they decide how to play it with no conductor to set tempo and dynamics and things like that? How do they agree on what to do, and how do they bring their various instruments' voices together into one unit?

The next Adrian Symphony Orchestra Casual Classic concert "pulls back the curtain," as it were, on the collaborative process that is chamber music with twin performances featuring the Beaumont String Quartet. The performances, which the ASO has titled "4=1, A String Quartet's Challenge," are at 8 p.m. on both Friday, Jan. 25, and Saturday, Jan. 26, at Father Williams Hall, St. Joseph's Church, Adrian.

Tickets are $25 for adults and $23 for senior citizens, and are available by calling the ASO at 264-3121, at www.adriansymphony.org, or at the venue each concert evening beginning at 6 p.m.

Casual Classic concerts feature casual dress, table seating and a cash bar that includes beer, wine and soft drinks. Groups of six or more may reserve tables in advance.

The concerts' title arose from the very nature of string-quartet playing.

"The point of this concert is to explore what it means to play chamber music, which is to say ensemble playing in which everyone is a soloist," said ASO Music Director John Thomas Dodson.

"When each part has only one player, you have a lot of issues to address. So, when we created the program and called it 4=1, it meant 'You have four people, playing four parts. At the end it has to be ONE thing.'"

Dodson approached the Beaumont String Quartet, which was founded in 2008 by ASO cellist Stefan Koch, because "I tried to think about who in the (ASO) was playing a lot of chamber music with a single group — spending a lot of time in the process of preparing and performing music, not just for educational concerts, but for public performances," he said.

Then, because of the nature of a Casual Classic performance, which blends making music and conveying information, "we needed a mix between good musicians, a long-standing ensemble, and really verbal people who could think on their feet when I throw them a curve during the program," said Dodson, who will engage the group in a question-and-answer format in addition to having them play. "I'm confident this string quartet can meet that challenge."

When Koch decided he wanted to start his own quartet, he began his search for fellow ensemble members with Susan Schreiber, who is the ASO's principal second violinist but also has extensive experience playing viola. "Finding a violist is often the hardest part," he said.

Then, as the pair discussed whom to approach for the two violin slots, the same two names arose: Priscilla Johnson and Judith Teasdle, both of whom have also performed with the ASO. "It just showed me that Susan and I were on the same wavelength," Koch said.

Page 2 of 3 - And that sense of "being on the same wavelength" is one of the essential components of performing as a chamber ensemble like the Beaumont String Quartet. One of the things the Casual Classic audience will learn is how chamber music is by necessity "a more consensual process" than music performed by an orchestra and a conductor.

Without a conductor, "who do you ask how long or short, how loud or soft, which note is the most important point in the melody, whether the harmony should be predominant or not in any particular passage?" said Dodson.

"That all has to be answered from among the players themselves. Sometimes they have to explore four or five different ways and then come to an agreement. The best groups work through a lot of options because they know that exploration is part of the process. But they also have to think structurally, meaning they have to put each phase in context of the whole.

"Music rolls out in time, so that is the dimension in which we work. Time always has three elements: the past, the present and the future.

"The piece is always in the present. You play a note NOW, but how you play it means that you have to remember what has already happened, and, if you've done your homework, you know how each moment fits into the larger canvas. You see the present in context of what WILL happen as well. … You have to be at the 'one inch off the ground' perspective — this note gets an accent — and you have to be at the 'thousand foot' level — this whole passage fits into the complete work like THIS — all at the same time."

"Chamber music is, by its very nature, the most difficult thing musicians do, because you have to do all of that in collaboration with others," Dodson continued. "You have to be strong and also be ready to compromise. It's the biggest challenge I can think of in music-making. … It's the mix between 'me' and 'us.' "

Koch said he enjoys the fact that string-quartet playing, with all the variables that can come into play at any given concert, is all about "creating the performance on the spot" with just a few other people.

"I like the collaborative voice," he said. "I like that it's something that I created with these other people. It's our creation."

In these concerts, the group will play parts of two string quartets and an entire third work. The main piece on the program is Beethoven's String Quartet No. 11, opus 95.

"Composers write symphonies for the world. They write string quartets for themselves," said Koch. "If you don't know Beethoven's quartets, you're missing a lot of what makes Beethoven Beethoven."

Page 3 of 3 - Additionally, the ensemble will perform part of a Mozart string quartet and part of a work by 20th-century composer Richard Stoehr that presents a unique opportunity for the audience.

Stoehr, an Austrian born of Jewish parents but who converted to Christianity, taught at the Vienna Academy of Music before the Germans invaded Austria. When they did, he was cut from the faculty because of his heritage and allowed to emigrate to the U.S., where he became a teacher first at the Curtis Institute of Music — Leonard Bernstein was among his students — and then at St. Michael's College in Vermont.

"I've been performing his cello and piano works, and I'm the only person in the U.S. to do them," said Koch. From there, Koch was led to Stoehr's string quartets including the one on the Casual Classic program.

Hence the aforementioned unique opportunity for this audience: to hear the resurrection of an unknown work, before the Beaumont Quartet performs it anywhere else.

"This will be something special for the audience," said Koch. "It's something that literally no one alive has ever heard performed."

And he thinks people will not only be pleasantly surprised by the piece, but will be interested in discovering how an ensemble approaches performing a work when there's no tradition of performing it.

Koch said he also believes the area's music lovers, especially those who have never heard a string quartet play live and in person, will find this particular Casual Classic appealing.

"I think they'll be surprised at how powerful (string quartet music) can be, and yet how intimate and personal it can be."